The White House defended Vice President Cheney yesterday in a dispute over his office's refusal to comply with an executive order regulating the handling of classified information as Democrats and other critics assailed him for disregarding rules that others follow.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Cheney is not obligated to submit to oversight by an office that safeguards classified information, as other members and parts of the executive branch are…. [T]he president gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should."

In a better world, or at least a world with better journalists, you'd hope that this would spark some neurons.

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride would not comment on the record yesterday…why Cheney's staff complied with the order in 2001 and 2002 and then decided not to in 2003.

Who knows? Maybe Cheney discovered a new-found passion for origami in 2003. Or maybe he and Scooter Libby were goofing around with Mentos and bottles of Diet Coke and the geysers of foamy spray drenched the entire vice-presidential suite.

Hard to say. There were all sorts of goofy things going on back in 2003.